


Departure

by valiantfindekano



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 04:11:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valiantfindekano/pseuds/valiantfindekano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fingon deals with the aftermath of a battle. Something isn't quite right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Departure

“Prince Fingon!”

He turned towards the voice, motioning for the guard to hold his comment for a moment—this sounded urgent. Then again, so was the ruined tower and the weakened gate, but he’d sent engineers to examine them already.  He’d still examine it himself, but everyone had demands and concerns, not all of which he could attend to at once.

It was one of the surgeons who approached now. “My prince, we run low on dressings for the wounds. The burns require more than we anticipated. What supplies are due?”

_Many._  Fingon bit his lip. “The main road is blocked. I last it heard it will be no sooner than three days before the traders from the south arrive, and I don’t know what cloth they will bring. What do you have remaining?”

“Enough for twenty men, I would guess.” The surgeon wavered.

“There are more than twenty wounded who need your attention,” Fingon stated. The surgeon nodded, and Fingon let out a slightly panicked breath. “Give me five minutes. Luinon, let them know I will be there as soon as I am able— _ai,_  and if you see my father, tell him I have had my knee bandaged?”

The guard nodded, and Fingon placed a hand on the surgeon’s shoulder before hurrying away. To the best of his ability, at least—the battles had taken their toll on him as well, and after two nights without any rest, he was starting to feel the strain. But there were others who needed attention more than he did, and while he still functioned, he owed it to them to help.

It was to his bedchambers that he went. For a moment, he hovered by his bed—should he sacrifice some of the sheets? He had others. Better to lose a bedsheet than to lose one of his men. He ripped it off the mattress, bundling it up before crossing to his wardrobe.

One of his shirts was torn, and he’d been meaning to get someone to sew it for him, but that was added to the bundle. He hesitated over a few more in similar conditions, but not for long.  _Better to lose a shirt than one of his men,_  he reminded himself.

This still wasn’t enough.

Fingon’s gaze flickered over to the windows next. Of course—the curtains. He rushed over, giving them a steady yank until the curtain rod fell, though he caught it before it hit the ground. He was quick to rip the inner layer away, leaving the heavy blue damask crumpled on the floor, but with the rest of his cloth now gathered together in his arms in a large, unwieldy bundle, he made for the door once again.

It was less than ten minutes later that he returned to the healing ward. The surgeon from earlier was nowhere to be found—no doubt he was already hard at work.

“My father’s door is locked, and I cannot find him or anyone with the key. The curtains could be sacrif—” Fingon paused mid-sentence, suddenly realising that the healer was looking at him strangely. “Is something wrong?”

“He did not tell you,” she said flatly after a moment.

“Tell me what? Who?” Did she mean his father? That was a look of fear spreading across her face, and it must have echoed Fingon’s own expression.

 “Your father rode out, not an hour ago,” she said. “He said he had business to finish, and that we should look to you in his absence.”

Fingon’s back straightened, and he glanced towards the door, as if it would somehow leave a clue to his father’s disappearance. “He said nothing to me,” he said, frowning. “What kind of business? Did he say?”

The healer shook his head. “I am afraid not. I thought we were under attack, since he wore his armour—”

Fingolfin had ridden out alone, dressed for battle? That wasn’t right.

“Excuse me a minute,” Fingon muttered, already rushing towards the door. His strides took him out to the courtyard, and he dragged himself up the stairs to the top of the gate, where a small crowd had gathered.

“There you are!” It was the engineer from earlier. “We’ve examined the damage, and it seems—”

“I haven’t come to talk about the gate,” Fingon snapped. “Who was here when my father left?”

 Silence.

“Who was here?” Fingon repeated.

One of the guards coughed, shuffling from foot to foot in a clearly uncomfortable stance. “We tried to stop him,” he said, and it sent Fingon’s heart twisting painfully in his chest. “We told him it was folly, but he would not listen. He would have ridden me down if he had to, he was in such a state—”

“He is riding to Angband,” another man concluded.  

Fingon’s head turned, and he stared in disbelief for a long moment before he found the words to respond. “What?  Why?”

“He means to challenge Morgoth in single combat.”

No.

“And none of you stopped him?” What had driven him to think that was a good idea, Fingon wondered? Had he gone mad? He’d seemed fine when they last spoke, however long ago that had been, but maybe he’d been planning this all along, to leave when Fingon’s back was turned—

“We tried, my prince. He did say we should stop you from following, but he may see sense before he reaches the gates…”

It took a few quick calculations to work out how long it would be before Fingolfin reached Angband. It had taken nearly a week to walk there all those centuries ago, but Fingon had started from Mithrim, and Ard-galen had been more than a flat, blackened plain then. Besides, he’d spent so long wandering the hills—had he paused at the gate of Angband, it would have spared a few days.

On horseback, it might take a matter of hours, and Rochallor was swift. He might nearly be there already, depending on when he had departed.

Fingon’s eyes flickered out over the gate and to the plains, as if he was seeking a spot of white light amidst the blackness to signify his father’s position, but there was nothing.

And then it was as if it all hit him at once—injuries, lack of sleep, managing the city’s recovery, and now the discovery that his father had left in a suicidal charge to their Enemy’s doorstep—there were spots blooming in front of his eyes, blood rushing in his ears, and he staggered forwards.

“I need to,” he said at no one in particular, bracing his arm against the battlements.

At least, that had been the intention, but he miscalculated; his arm hit empty air, and he pitched forward. He would have fallen against the stones if one of the guards had not stepped forward to catch him. Another came to support his weight from the other side, and then they were dragging him away from the walls, across the courtyard.

“Someone needs to go after him,” Fingon insisted, struggling against them with what energy he could still muster. “Someone needs to tell him that I can’t, that I’m not, and they can’t leave him or he’ll be taken and I can’t, they won’t let it—”

“Ssshhh. Findekáno. Breathe.”

He tried. It sounded suspiciously like a sob, unless it was a dry-heave… belatedly, he realised he had not eaten any more than he had slept. His stomach felt cramped, but then his lips were also very dry, and the thought of forcing food down now made him cough again.

“Almost there now. Just a few more steps, Findekáno.”

They were inside now, struggling up the staircase, and Fingon’s feet felt too heavy, and there were still dark spots blocking his vision, rendering him even more clumsy.

In the morning—was it morning? The sun looked suspiciously high in the sky—he could not remember who had unbuttoned his shirt and removed his boots for him, or who had placed blankets over him. He remembered collapsing face-down on his bed, but that was where his recollection stopped.

Not that he had any particular desire to piece it together.

He awoke for a second time by a commotion outside his window, and not long later, knocking on his door.

“Pri—My king! Findekáno! The King of Eagles is here! Come quickly!” 


End file.
